


Double Check

by keysmash



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Community: 14valentines, Episode Tag, F/M, Female Character of Color, Grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-09
Updated: 2010-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:25:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keysmash/pseuds/keysmash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tamara looked around the kitchen and realized her gear was still sitting out. There wasn't anybody else to put it away while she did other stuff, now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Double Check

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 14valentines. Spoilers for 301.

She spent a lot of time taking risky jobs, after Isaac. Infiltrating a coven large enough to have branches in three states, like they were a franchise, and stealing their rarest books, trashing their main altar; hitting a shape shifter that was preying upon modeling agencies; tracking something she thought was a spirit but was actually human trafficking; taking out a pair of werewolves. They were all two-person jobs, at the very least, but she'd pushed and pushed herself, and it wasn't until she drove into a tree and spent a few days concussed in a hospital bed that Tamara admitted that, just maybe, she needed to slow down.

She got a call from Ellen Harvelle the day she was released and declared fit to drive again, at almost exactly half an hour after she signed her last bit of paperwork. She'd heard a little bit about the traces that Ash kid had been able to put on people, to snatch info about them out of all sorts of databases, and so Tamara answered, talked for a while. They were building the bar up again, apparently, and Ellen asked her to come stay for a while without saying it in so many words. Tamara reminded herself that she'd lost a man the same way, to some stupid job gone wrong, but that wasn't what she wanted right now. The old things sucked, but she didn't want anything new, either.

Things had gotten dusty at home, like whenever the two of them worked a string of jobs in fast succession, and Tamara spent some time wiping down the kitchen counter after she swept the perimeter. The fridge was empty, just like it should be, except for condiments and a few bottles of beer, but Isaac always put a loaf of bread in the freezer before they left, so there'd be something to eat. Tamara dug it out now, finding it freezer-burnt and stiff, and she smacked it on the counter a few times before she could pry a few slices from the end. She toasted them and found a can of soup to heat up, then looked around the kitchen and realized her gear was still sitting out. There wasn't anybody else to put it away while she did other stuff, now.

So she went and unpacked while the soup cooked, tossing clothes directly on top of the washing machine instead of heading into the closet to put them into the basket, and putting the weapons away, and coming up with a preliminary list of things they'd — she'd need to refill. The pot was boiling unhappily by the time she got back to the kitchen, and the bread in the toaster had cooled back down to room temperature. Tamara dished up a bowl and let it cool on the counter before eating it standing up.

She wrote down the list of supplies and then walked around the house to check again and add things to it. She had plenty of some stuff, like the boxes of salt that lined an entire wall of the garage, but needed more of others, like the herb garden that tended to wilt whenever it wasn't watered regularly. They didn't have enough of some things for two people — body wash, laundry detergent, toothpaste, bandages, Advil, condoms — but it was all fine for one. It'd last her a long time.

She walked through the bedroom, on her way to and from the closet and the bathroom, but she didn't look at the bed. She wound up wrapped in a blanket on the couch at the time she would have normally gone to sleep, with late night TV playing across the room. She was usually too out of touch these days for any of the jokes to make sense to her, but the laugh track was nice, and the music. Except for that square of movement and sound, the entire house sat quiet around her.

Tamara wasn't going to say it had been easier after Lizzie, because a thing more awful than that didn't exist. But after that, at least, she had had something to do. There was a whole world of stuff to learn, a new way of life to fall into, and there had been Isaac with her, just as lost and wrecked as she'd been. There'd been revenge then, and it had taken both of them through the worst of the mourning.

Now, though, she already knew all there was to know about how he died. She didn't have research to do this time around, or improvements to make to the house, or physical training to brush up on. All she had right now was an empty home and a show recorded earlier that day, when it was still bright outside.

She woke up with a crick in her neck and some morning show chattering quietly at her. The sun wasn't up yet, but she didn't want to spend another minute on the couch, so she got up and looked at the hallway leading to the bedroom for a moment before going to fill a pot of coffee instead. She rubbed her neck herself while she waited for it to fill, then thawed herself two more pieces of toast. She'd need to go grocery shopping today, maybe before she got anything else. She had the basics of everything else, or stuff she could use as substitutes for what she didn't have, but she'd get sick of so much bread pretty fast.

So she showered, and dressed, and shoved her first load of laundry into the washer, and salted down the house, and touched up the sigils and traps and runes, and then headed out. She laughed at herself a little when she checked out and realized she'd filled her cart with what she always called the bachelor's special, when she worked at the grocery store around the block from her parent's house over summer breaks: TV dinners, cereal, a jug of milk, plenty of beer, and one bunch of bananas. All she was missing was the Cheetos. She added a newspaper, reminding herself that she'd need to call and start up the mail and paper delivery again, then headed home, needing to deal with the frozen things.

When she got back, she spread the paper over the kitchen table and glanced through the obits, just getting the information in her mind, then went to put the groceries away and think it over. Nothing seemed unusual at first — everyone listed today was either old or sick enough for their deaths to have been expected — but the more she thought about it, something seemed off about a trio of women who'd died over the weekend. She filled a glass of water and went to double check. They'd all been in the same nursing home, she saw, and she found a pad of paper and a green pen before sitting down to work. She was willing to bet the three of them had been friends, or at least acquaintances, and she started jotting down the names of the listed survivors. A local job, with victims from a single location and half her preliminary legwork printed up by the paper — she didn't know what she was dealing with yet, but this job she could handle herself.


End file.
